


What The Water Gave Me

by losttothesea



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angsty Schmoop, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Feels, Fluff and Angst, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, M/M, Murder Husbands, Pet Names, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Someone Helps Will Graham, Will Graham Has Feelings, Will Graham Has Nightmares, Will Graham Loves Hannibal Lecter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25901398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/losttothesea/pseuds/losttothesea
Summary: Will, for something new and different, feels a lot of feelings.(Post-"The Wrath of the Lamb")
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 7
Kudos: 102





	What The Water Gave Me

**Author's Note:**

> _Time it took us  
>  To where the water was  
> That's what the water gave me  
> And time goes quicker  
> Between the two of us  
> Oh, my love, don't forsake me  
> Take what the water gave me_  
> —Florence + the Machine, "What The Water Gave Me"

**I. Nightmares**

The worst one, the cruelest, the one Will feels in his gut more keenly than he felt Hannibal’s knife, is miserably simple: He survives. Hannibal doesn’t. Over and over he dreams of coming out of the sea, gasping for breath, taking in staggering lungfuls of salty air. He dreams of feeling Hannibal next to him in the water, of dragging Hannibal’s unconscious body up to the shore, of realizing in one heart-stopping, world-collapsing moment that Hannibal isn't unconscious but dead.

Over and over he dreams, and over and over he pounds his fists into Hannibal’s chest, presses his mouth to Hannibal’s, desperate to give him everything, anything: life, air, the world, his own bloody beating heart. He dreams of cursing Hannibal, slapping him across the face, shouting, “ _Just wake up, you fucker! You goddamned fucking devil. Just. Wake. Up.”_ He dreams of collapsing past the point of curses, dreams of his body shuddering over Hannibal’s, wracked with cold and exhaustion and huge heaving sobs. 

“Please,” he dreams of whispering, over and over again like a fevered prayer. “Please, Hannibal, you can’t leave me. You were never supposed to leave me. Don’t you fucking dare leave me alone.”

Over and over he dreams; over and over his mouth, wet with tears and sweat and ocean water, returns to Hannibal’s. Returns to urging life, desperately, futilely, into Hannibal’s lungs. Over and over he cycles rapidly through blind panic and the dark maw of despair and the hot, stinging hope that suddenly Hannibal’s eyes will open and he will murmur something infuriating like “If you wanted to kiss me, Will, you need only have asked.”

Over and over he wakes up shot through with jagged bolts of anxiety until he can get his hands on Hannibal, who inevitably murmurs something infuriating before kissing him deeper than the ocean, deeper than nightmares, deeper than fear.

**II. Scars**

Too many to count, too many to even keep track of. So many that Will now understands why their intricate tracery is so often, in writing, described as a constellation. Sometimes he stands in front of the mirror for long minutes, trying to catalogue them. There, arcing low and silvery across his belly: Hannibal’s knife, that blood-soaked night in Hannibal’s kitchen when everything began and ended and began again. There, sharp and jagged above his ear: a rock at the bottom of the cliff, he thinks, although as with many things in his past he can’t be sure.

Sometimes it's Hannibal who catalogues them, trailing soft sinful kisses up and down and across, soothing every place Will is wounded.

One night, in a fit of anxiety, Will asks Hannibal if he minds the scars, if he finds Will less attractive because of them. Hannibal, of course, has his own constellations, and Will is mesmerized by them, but somehow it feels different in reverse. Hannibal is majestic, a sculpture carved from vengeance and tenderness and fire; next to him, it's easy for Will to feel like nothing more than broken pottery.

Hannibal, in his way, barely quirks an eyebrow but still manages to look at Will as if this is the most preposterous question imaginable. “Of course not, Will,” he says. “They mean you survived.”

**III. Hannibal**

There are types of happiness described as “only in dreams,” but for Will, nothing is better than Hannibal coming _out_ of his dreams. Coming out of the water, not dead—barely alive, but not dead, not dead, _not dead_. Weeks later this mantra still rings in his head: _Hannibal’s not dead, Hannibal’s not dead_. _Hannibal’s alive, alive,_ alive.

Hannibal is alive, and brushing his teeth. Hannibal is alive, and cleaning the kitchen. Will revels in the ecstatic ordinariness of it all, the breathtaking domesticity. Hannibal is alive, and feeding the dogs. Hannibal is alive, and ironing his sweater.

Hannibal is alive, and Hannibal is _here_.

“Tell me,” he says one night, eyeing Will over the reading glasses that Will finds so gleefully incongruous on that fallen angel's face. “Why is it that you always look at me as if I’ve saved you from drowning?”

“Because you did,” Will says automatically. The factual truths of the story have become unimportant. The narrative truth, the one that beats inside Will like a vital organ, is that Hannibal saved his life; that Hannibal, in fact, _continues_ to save his life. Every day, every hour, every moment. Here, now, again and again, always.

“No, no, mano meile,” Hannibal says softly, one broad hand smoothing Will’s hair. “No, my darling. My sweet lost lamb. Don’t you remember? You saved me.”

Will opens his mouth in protest, but Hannibal’s sweet smirking lips are on his before he can form words. And all Will can think is what bliss this is, to lose arguments to Hannibal for the rest of his life.

All Will can think is, _The water gave him back_.


End file.
